Infographics in Math Class

I am a big fan of the infographic as a means of harnessing student attention. I think they can present entry points to all sorts of rich math discussions in class. They are visually interesting and often neatly summarise quite complex ideas or huge figures in a way which is easy to absorb. Below is one that recently caught my eye, listing the dizzying number of social media happenings in 1 minute (from http://www.mathematicshed.com/infographics-shed.html). This presents some obvious tie-ins with Number Sense or Data Management strands; students might survey and graph their own social media use after exploring the stats here, for example.  

On a similar theme, this interactive 3D graphic mapping global population is pretty fascinating too.

Students could be tasked with finding out the biggest population centres in each continent and creating their own graphs, but this would be a great hook to kick things off in the Data Management strand. There are lots more in a similar vein at metrocosm.com.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has any favourites.

Mnemonics make math FUN!!!

Math Mnemonic

How many of us were not very interested in our math classes??? Many of us struggled due to finding difficulties memorizing those rules and mathematic formulas or stuck finding a motivated way to solving those equations.

There are many ways, which a teacher can utilize to engage his/her students and keep them motivated in learning math. I have discussed in my previous blog the integration of rap songs into math classes and it is noticeable affect on students’ success and elevating their interest in math. Today, I want to share some math mnemonics, which will make you the coolest and smartest teacher ever, in your students’ eyes, at least 😊

A mnemonic is a device, such as a formula or rhyme, used as an aid in remembering. Many students just remember the mnemonic, which could help them memorize orders of solving expressions or a formula to find an unknown during any assessment. This will uplift their academic performance along with increasing their enthusiasm level towards learning math.  

          Those mnemonic will add enjoyable mathematic environment in your classroom, when posted on the walls. It would be ideal, to prepare a visual representation, such as a poster, of each new mnemonic introduced to your students and display so students can easily access it whenever needed.

Some teachers provide their students with formula sheets to be used during tests or quizzes. Having those mnemonic posters in your classroom will save you time preparing formula sheets. Otherwise, you can put them down before a test, if you expect your students to know those formulas.

An example of mnemonic for measures of angles in right triangles:

·       SOH: Sine = Opposite leg divided by the Hypotenuse.

·       CAH: Cosine = Adjacent leg divided by the Hypotenuse.

·       TOA: Tangent = Opposite leg divided by the Adjacent leg.

Silly Old Harry Carried A Horse To Our Apartment.

Below is a full archive of many mathematical mnemonics, which surly you'll enjoy using in any future math class 😊

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/archives/mnemonics.shtml

What's the Best Deal?

It might be a close race, but I think students might like their phones, tablets, and gaming consoles more than school. The enjoyment I see from kids at my part-time job (Best Buy) can SOMETIMES exceed the excitement I see when I'm teaching linear or quadratic relations...okay, all the time. Depending on the course you're teaching, it can be a good idea to incorporate a weekly flyer into your class, to discuss discounts and better deals. Around this time of the year, flyers at any retail store are going to be pretty thick, so you have many options to choose from to answer the question: "what is the better deal?".

I've used this activity in a MEL3E night class, where I grab a few flyers and have students work in partners or a group of 3. I ask specific groups to tell me what is the best deal with respect to percentage discount and not actual price. I'll give one group laptops, another televisions, appliances, etc. It serves the purpose of students practicing working with percents, and also lets me know what the solid deals are (and yet still procrastinate on my Christmas shopping). At this time last year, my students (many above the age of 30) were gearing up for Christmas, so having them use a real flyer, instead of a made up worksheet, made this assignment more appealing. I'm sure many teachers have done this. I can give credit to the customers that always...always...ask: "which is the better deal though?".

Have a great day gang.

Mathematical Rap Videos

Using Math Rap Videos

Senior mathematics can be very tough form many students to grasp and retain. Few teachers, like Ernesto Lara, write and produce their own mathematical rap songs/videos to share with students. Most of students find it easier to understand and retain geometry and calculus concepts through memorizing the beats and lyrics.

Using rap videos, especially those displaying pictures of the presented mathematical concept along with the written lyrics will allow students to learn math concepts in a more interactive way. Students will stay focused and pay attention to the video presented. Many students just remember the lyrics of the song, which helps them to sing it to themselves during a test and a quiz. This will elevate their academic performance along with increasing their motivation level towards learning math.  

 

          Since understanding the lyrics of the rap videos is an essential aspect for students to memorize the song and utilize it, teachers can provide students with the written lyrics before playing the song. So, if there are any students with special needs or ESL students who find some difficulties with decomposing the song lyrics, would have the chance to refer to the provided lyrics.

 

Ernesto Lara and his students’ feedback on rap song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4RaYz6t5y8

 

An example of how to solve quadratic equations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJrH49Z2ZA

 

Virtual Reality Math

Wouldn't it be amazing if a student who has difficulty understanding 3-D trig questions use a virtual reality app to go to the great pyramids of Giza and find the angle of elevation of one of the pyramids? I learned about CoSpaces from the EdTech session ‘VR & STEAM education’ where I was able to create a pyramid in a virtual reality world and go inside it. Although the equipment I tried there was quite expensive and we are not likely to have it in our classroom (at least anytime soon), but I also learned that we could make a VR headset from scratch and create VR worlds using CoSpaceshttps://cospaces.io/.

This afternoon I worked on a VR headset with my daughter (I had promised her to make one together). After lunch we collected materials like cardboard, glues, lenses (you can use toy binocular lenses) and spent a couple of hours to build one. We used the following steps:

1.       Download the template 

2.       Cut the images out

3.       Trace them on cardboard

(I printed some on cardstock paper but cardboard is a lot stronger)

4.       Cut the traced lines 

5.       Assemble the pieces by glue/tape 

6.       Go to CoSpaces (download required) and choose a space or create one 

7.       Place your phone in the headset

8.       Explore the VR world

I thought about how this kind of experience could help students understand math (e.g. 3-D geometry) or science lessons.

What is Google Classroom? Wow it works with Quizizz too!!

I'm just starting to look into this since (Quizizz.com)

 

is also connect to it (see picture below for details)

Anyway, check out the "What is Google Classroom" below, I'm going to set it up with my math class, it looks just too easy and helpful in mark keeping!! 

Google Classroom is a blended learning platform developed by Google for schools that aims to simplify creating, distributing and grading assignments in a paperless way.

Quizizz.com - My Overview

So as I mentioned, I've seen my friend give me a tour of it and loved it and finally getting to it!!
Check out this feature to teleport individual questions from somebody elses quiz!

Click  TELEPORT to see for yourself.

And after you type a quiz title to search, you see all those questions and all you have to do is click the  red "+" you see in the lower right of the picture below on question 7 and it gets added to your quiz (notice 1-6 have already been added). Only pick the questions you want and then pick and select from another different quiz the specific questions you also want with just a one click each, it really is as easy as that! 

Notice the "red" on question 1 in the picture above, so I hovered over it and it happened to be an incomplete question, awesome, I'm glad it points that out cause on a written test when I make a mistake and print twenty copies, I also have to explain it at least ten times... See picture below for more details.

Next, I added a bunch of questions from other quizizz and added a picture of the town sign and clicked finish! see below.

The last thing I did is assign it as homework and it gives you a code. I suggest doing a print screen on this and save it in a folder for the students to find and do, for homework or in my case, I'll do it next computer class to see how it works myself!

I hope I've convinced you its easy enough for you to give it a try!

Careers in Math

I always think a fun and inspiring project to do with students is to pick a career that uses the subject area that they are in.  I think if students see different fun and cool careers that incorporate math then they may want to push themselves more to achieve greatness!

http://www.dreambox.com/blog/7-dream-jobs-that-require-math

The above website shows some different jobs that one may not even though of requiring math.  These jobs are different and may spark the interest in your students.  They may find a new career they like or just find a new path in life (especially for the grade 11 and grade 12s).  

As a teacher, you can incorporate an assignment that students research jobs that require the subject or you can just use it as a presentation for the class.  You can create a presentation and just have a fun half lesson on different career choices for math lovers or spark a new math lover due to a career.

Either way have fun with it!

Skills Students may need in the Future

I thought this was pretty interesting so I thought I'd share it: 

The graphic below lists the skills industry leaders valued in 2015, as well as the skills they will be looking for in 2020.

It's sourced from the Future of Jobs Report, World Economic Forum, and you can see the top three are, Complex Problem Solving, Critical Thinking and Creativity. You can see the direct link these three skills lend to mathematics and need to encourage problem solving and inquiry-based learning in the classroom. Other skills listed on the 2020 list and not on the 2015 are: Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Flexibility, I found this interesting too, could you incorporate these ideas in a Math lesson? 

Just for fun... 

Ontario Math Ed Resources

As educators, it is important that we know where to look when we need resources or to have a "bank" of resources to refer to when teaching any subject. The following website is designed specifically for Mathematics; it provides educators with a wide array of resources such as teaching tools and guides, links to activities for students, and mathematical strategies and supports as well. The website provides many links to external websites that are related to mathematics that would benefit students, teachers, and parents.

I have used this website during my placements when I had to teach math. I was able use various resources to aid me during my lessons and to also enhance them. I also had students use some of the links provided for additional support in school and at home.

http://www.ontariomathedresources.ca/

Quizizz.com

Quizizz makes it super-easy to create great quizzes in no time!! A teacher friend showed me this and I was so impressed at how user friendly it was. I had added it to my TO DO list, and now I will finally spend the time to get into it!!

At a quick glance, I see it recently added a bunch of new features including "Google Integration". I'm going to create an account and keep adding to this post to give you more details and let you know what I think. Check out this link to get an idea of what it can do, or stay tuned...

Bell Ringers and Tickets out the Door

Throughout my year in teachers college my advisor and biology teachable professor always told me the importance of bell ringers and tickets out the door to start the lesson off right and end it on a good note as well.

Ticket out the doors and other formative assessments at the end of the period were always my strong point.  Even though the ones I did were always related to science I can still see this being a helpful tool for math students.

With ticket out the doors, students can answer a certain question or two that relates to the lesson they did that day.  When they hand that in as they leave it allows the teacher to see how they understood the lesson, where they went wrong, and provide formative feedback.  When students receive this formative feedback on where they went right and wrong they will be able to fix their mistakes before a quiz or type of assessment that gave marks.  I also loved doing Kahoots at the end of a group of lessons that were all related.  Students love doing Kahoots as they are fun game like times and it also allows them to see right away if they know the answer or if they don't.  These are all super fun and easy ways to test knowledge of students in a formative manner before they leave your class for the day.

https://kahoot.com/

Bell ringers/minds on, on the other hand, were always my weak point.  I would always just put up a question from the night before and have students answer to ensure they learned the previous days material.  This is similar to a ticket out the door so it was always a bit repetitive.  This is something that I will need to work on because math is not always the fun subject but if I can make it fun then students will be more engaged.  I know a fun video or gizmo about the topic may be a good way to start off the lesson.

What are some ways you do a minds on or bell ringer?
What about some of your ended ways?

Lets all share so that everyone can increase their resources and pick up some awesome ideas!

EdTech Camp 2017 & Kevin Brookhouser

My first EdTech Camp experience started with inspirational stories from Kevin Brookhouser, the keynote speaker of EdTech Camp 2017. 

His emphasis on motivating students to become ‘wicked’ problem solvers – because today’s most dire problems won’t be solved with algorithmic approaches - have made him start the 20% project. When he told his students that they could spend 20% of their time for whatever they would like to work on, surprisingly students were not happy because they were not used to autonomy. It was so hard to make them even begin brainstorming, so he started ‘Bad Idea Factory’ and students got really motivated and produced tons of ‘bad’ ideas while having lots of fun. In fact, many of those were not bad ideas at all e.g. someone trying a wheelchair for a whole day inspired them to become advocates and finally ramps were built.

Two things I learned: 
1. Students can become a lot more capable when opportunities are given
2. Project based learning can facilitate student autonomy and build innovative thinkers

The EdTech video of his talk today is not available but here is his talk at TEDxMonterey:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqG-bppvW7khttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqG-bppvW7k

Exchange Rate

Student’s even teachers can’t wait until winter break, spring break, and most importantly summer break. During these times, people tend to go on vacations and visit places that they haven’t been to before. Speaking for myself, I try to go to a different country every 2 years. When going to a different country, the first thing we do when we get there is to exchange money for the trip. Not to forget that we are a boarder city, so our city does deal a lot with currency exchange. So I think it is really important for our students to learn how to deal with converting money. It is also part of the curriculum for the students to solve problems by using proportional reasoning in a variety of meaningful contexts. The specific expectation is to identify and describe real-life situations involving two quantities that are directly proportional. This is directly taken out of the grade 8 math curriculum. I am going to compare the Canadian to the American currency. For every $1.00 Canadian, the exchange rate is $0.80 American today. The reason why I brought up vacations at the beginning was to have students write all the countries they have been to and research what is the exchange rate between the Canadian currency and that countries currency today. If the students haven’t been to other countries, then they can pick places that they would want to visit in the future and to find the currency exchange rate. We can extend such lesson and ask the students to use their findings of the exchange rate to find the difference of prices in each country of five different groceries.

Morning Routine with Math

This is a bit different than some of the other posts in this blog, and it might not be for everyone! My usual routine in the morning is to drink my coffee (of course), read articles and do some KenKen on the NY Times website. For those of you who have never done a KenKen puzzle, it's a puzzle that calls on your skills with the basic operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Numbers cannot repeat in rows or columns, and you must complete whatever arithmetic lies in the bolded boxes.

Anyway, I thought one day that it'd be a good idea to share part of the routine with my students. To some, it was boring and they didn't care much for it. One morning I would teach the class how to complete a KenKen puzzle, and as they walk in to class every day I would have printed copies of a daily KenKen puzzle printed from the NY Times website. It wasn't mandatory, but students knew that if they sat down they should have something to work on or read. It got more and more popular and students would end up racing each other (and me, foolishly..ha). I feel this is a good way to keep the mind sharp and wakes people up in the morning. I've done this routine with Science classes as well! It pushes students to practice their basic operations and can really challenge them if they choose to do a 6x6 medium or hard puzzle. I recommend it to anyone who's never done it! The link is in the first paragraph. Cheers!

Math and Problem Solving

Okay I know, we should be teaching mathematical topics through real-life, problem-solving contexts and enquiry-oriented environments. But, honestly, how do I do it? Just put students in groups, hand them some chart paper, and put a problem up on the board from the textbook? Kay kids, when the big hand gets to the nine we'll take it up! Right? 

Here's why I like this video, already popular in the Math world, math teacher Dan Meyer, talks about changing the way we teach problem solving in math. Although he is American, I believe many of the issues are the same. I realized as I watched how textbooks teach students what to expect, or excel at what he calls, "paint by numbers" classwork. Instead, students should be learning to stop, think and even formulate the problems themselves. 

Definite "auh-ha" moment for me. I like how he asks students to come up with the problems themselves or takes a reverse approach, to where the students have to work backwards, find all the missing information and then solve the problem. It's very neat how he uses real-life examples too, even going as far as doing the experiments himself or taking actual pictures and videos of the objects students need to examine and solve for. Does anyone else have any other tips or ideas for problem solving? 

Here’s a link just in case too

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover?utm_campaign=tedspread--a&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare